“Will Scarlet you’ve met,” he gestured. “That one attached to his side is Elena. You’ll be needing a double cell for the two of them. It’s awfully hard to keep them separate.”

Elena uncurled from Will’s chest and poised herself, a limp hand extended toward Robin. “Lady Gamwell will do fine.”

“Lady Gamwell.” Robin bowed deeply to her, holding her hand ever so gently and giving it a brushed kiss. He could tell she hadn’t expected him to play along, but the cold stare from Will was worth it.

“Please tell me you blindfolded him,” Elena said, absolutely unamused. Robin had wondered the same thing during their day’s travel, but saw no reason to question it.

“We … did not,” Will answered matter-of-factly. “But the terrain, he would have fallen over every couple of seconds. We would have had to carry him.”

“You could have punched him,” offered a redheaded man with a sharp face. “You could have punched him until he fell asleep.”

“That’s not how sleep works, Arthur,” Elena scolded.

“And we still would have had to carry him,” Will replied. “That literally fixes nothing.”

“But you had horses.” Elena put her hands on both of Will’s cheeks to aim his head at the horses they stole. “You could have blindfolded him and put him on a horse.”

Will looked stupefied, and Elena kissed his cheek.

“Love you.”

That answers that, Robin thought. They had let him see the way to their camp because they were idiots.

The introductions shifted to the redhead Arthur a Bland, and a lean man with long blond hair named David of Doncaster. By quick glance they were the most able-bodied of the group, and they fidgeted at Robin’s sides in an effort to appear as though they were guarding him. Both had Crusader swords slung under their belts, with visible rust creeping onto the broad sides. Other men and women nodded in turn as Little named them out, and Robin smiled and looked each in the eye, all while scrutinizing their camp. A row of swords plunged into the ground a few paces apart each, a line strung across their hilts, wet laundry drying over it. Inside a tent, a bedroll was made of rolled Crusader tabards. The charred wood in the campfires wasn’t the dark remnants of firewood but of straight boards, crates, and boxes.

Robin picked a random girl in the crowd and asked for her name, which was Malory. The pregnant pause that followed was the exact length in which a normal person might ask for Robin’s name. But through all the introductions, he had yet to be asked for one himself. He assumed they were either terrible humans, or already knew who he was. Or both. Probably both. But he didn’t know yet what advantage they sought.